What depression feels like

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A few weeks ago, I was following a conversation on twitter about whether depression is an illness, and I remember thinking that, while it's certainly true for me that depression seems like an illness, I couldn't clearly remember what it actually felt like to be very depressed. I could still remember what I looked like in the mirror at my grey-faced worst, and I could recall some of the things I could and couldn't do when I was depressed, but I found it hard to bring to mind what it felt like, physically or emotionally.

But, this week, a dark cloud that had been hovering for months has descended and I'm writing this now, at three in the afternoon on a Sunday, tapping the words onto a screen, with my head under the covers and tears running down my face.

For reasons I don't want to go into here, I have deleted a whole trail of my posting history from social media over the last few days.  I'd stopped feeling safe about having revealed so much about my personal history online, and I needed to do something about it. But it wasn't great timing; I'm not good at timing. I've been feeling a bit blunted on the inside for a bit too long, following a virus that wouldn't properly go away.  Now I feel like I've unintentionally deleted a chunk of myself, along with my words, and everything seems especially fucking awful.

Yes, I know, I know, I've only just deleted everything and now I'm writing another blog. It doesn't make sense and I don't know exactly why I'm doing this, except that writing helps me think, and thinking is so hard right now. And what I want to write about feels less intimate somehow than some of the other stuff I deleted. So I am going to try to capture some of what it feels like now, in the hope that it might be interesting/helpful to my future self, assuming that at some point I will be able to chase the dark clouds away.

So, how does it feel? Is it depression? Is it illness (or not)? Fuck off, I no longer care what they call it.  I'm alone with it now.

The feelings I couldn't bring to mind a few weeks ago - they now consume me. I've woken up crying for the last few days and I feel so sad and heavy and tired all day long.  I've been feeling increasingly tired for weeks now, and thinking often that, if only I could have a good nap, I might wake up refreshed and it'd all feel better. Except that I've not been sleeping that much worse than usual, it's just a long time since I've felt rested on waking.  And throughout the day I've been feeling that kind of shaky exhaustion that you can feel at the end of a long walk - except that I haven't been anywhere. I keep thinking I'll feel better after food, or after coffee, but it doesn't work like that. I sit down to eat but I just pick at the food because I don't feel hungry or, at least, I don't feel like eating.  After lunch,  I just want to put my head on the table, and sometimes I do, and I don't know how long for. It's just too hard to think about things like how to wash up and clear things away. Everything seems complicated.

A lot of the physical sensations are like a kind of tension. It hurts behind my eyes, as it does if ever I try to stop myself from crying. I'm not trying to hold back tears at all right now but the tears seem trapped all day long nonetheless and it aches and I'm tired by it. And my limbs feel heavy like they might after a long day, but the strangest of the heavy sensations is in my jaw. It feels constantly like the moment before a yawn, but there is no release, no relief.

I've been here before and I know it to be a vulnerable, half-way, grey place. I have a special file, a set of notes I wrote to myself during happier, more smug times when I apparently thought it might be helpful to write reams of suggestions to keep myself the right side of darkness. For fuck's sake. I want everyone to fuck off, including my smug, previously well self, writer of ridiculous 'to do' lists. I hate everyone.

These notes I wrote for myself, I dug them out the other week, when I was following that conversation about depression on twitter. This darkness seemed alien to me then; that person I was the other week seems alien to me now.  I do kind of know that if I do the things on the Smug List, that the way I'm feeling now will probably pass in time, albeit not as quickly as I want. I've been here before and survived. Fuck it though, if I could only manage a good nap, I'd rather try that instead.

And though I hate it, I do actually keep writing little lists for myself to break impossible things down into something slightly less impossible. I can't copy any them here because I feel too ashamed of the tiny increments I need to break a task into, to make it doable. Why am I ashamed of that, above all the other things? I don't know.  I don't know anything, I just know I keep forgetting what I am doing, what I need to do next, to a way worse degree than usual, and I hate it.

My notes from my smug self say I need to spend time with other people, and try to be social a bit of the time, because I'll start to feel better eventually if I do. As of now, I feel as irritated with my smug note-writing self as I do with every other fucker in the world. I can't be bothered talking, smiling, laughing, I'm annoyed by others' breathing.  I'm way too irritated to be out from under the covers.

Smug note-writing self also assures me that if I just put my shoes on and leave the house and walk anywhere for 5 minutes, then turn round and come back again, that'll help, it'll be a good start. 5 minutes, my arse. I'm exhausted just at the thought of finding socks and shoes and a coat. I sit on the stairs to do up my laces, and lay my head against the wall instead, because I feel tired again. I go for the walk, but I'm bored before I get to the end of the block. The post box at the end of the next block seems much too far away, and the thought of 5 minutes of this hell makes me cry.

But how is it that a 5 minute walk can make me cry, yet whole days can pass away without me noticing? I'm losing track of where the time goes.  I spent a good chunk of yesterday not knowing what day it was. I felt sure that it was Friday until something on tv made me realise with a jolt that it was Saturday. Or was it? I kept thinking I should check, and a couple of times I went online but, once there, I forgot why I was there, and I got stuck in a loop, staring blankly at the screen and just switching off again because I couldn't think what to do.  It feels mad just writing this. Things are not right, I don't need the Smug File to tell me that much.

I can answer one question in the Smug File though. I remember now why I can't practice mindfulness meditation when I am this low. It's not because of the usual problems of struggling to attend to my breath. It's not because I'm distracted by random thoughts, or because my mind is crowded with yearning or judgement or whatever else the Smug Buddhist is saying on the recording. It's the struggle with breathing itself, because of the lead weight bearing down on my chest. I learned to meditate without the weight, and breathing isn't the same now, and focusing on it just makes me feel worse. I try but I end up just sat there just catching my breath,  frustrated by the involuntary gasps for air. The whole business of counting on the in and out breath just isn't feasible right now. It's a waste of time.

I'm ready to stop here, but... Ha, lookibg at the screen, and there ar so mabty oaragraph made up mistly if misspelled words and akward sentence fragments with red squiggles unlinibg my confusion. The spellchecker is as confused as I am.  Editing feels like torture, like chewing on tinfoil. I'm leaving a little bit unedited, for future smug comparison purposes. See, I am still able to make plans for the future, that's a good thing, I think, even though it doesn't bode well for the Smug File.

I've been writing this, and letting my mind and body wander away, and drinking coffee for hours now. It's half past ten. My hands feel heavy and tired as though I'm holding something much heavier than a kindle. Usually, words come to me in a massive rush, they spill out of my fingertips, and I find it hard to contain them on the page. Writing this has just been painfully slow, hard labour.